For Stacking The Shelves hosted by Reading Reality I’m posting the books I’ve added to my digital library this week, and the blurbs that made me download them in the first place.
The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow
From Goodreads: Sir Una Everlasting was Dominion’s greatest hero: the orphaned girl who became a knight, who died for queen and country. Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children’s books and recruiting posters―but her life as it truly happened has been forgotten.
Centuries later, Owen Mallory―failed soldier, struggling scholar―falls in love with the tale of Una Everlasting. Her story takes him to war, to the archives―and then into the past itself. Una and Owen are tangled together in time, bound to retell the same story over and over again, no matter what it costs.
But that story always ends the same way. If they want to rewrite Una’s legend―if they want to tell a different story–they’ll have to rewrite history itself.
The Murder of Patience Brooke by J. C. Briggs
From Goodreads: London, 1849
Charles Dickens has set up Urania Cottage as a sanctuary for fallen women.
But he is shocked when the matron’s assistant – Patience Brooke – is found hanging outside the property, covered in blood.
Desperate to protect the reputation of the Home and to stop a scandal from spreading, Dickens takes the investigation into his own hands.
With the help of his good friend, Superintendent Sam Jones of Bow Street, and a description of the suspect as ‘a man with a crooked face’, Dickens’s search takes him deep into the filthy slums of Victorian London.
Can Dickens save his reputation? Will he find out the secrets of Patience Brooke’s troubled past?
Or will the killer strike again …?
Death of a Stranger by John Pilkington
From Goodreads: 1594, Bishopsgate Ward, London.
Within the walls and without, unease and uncertainty lurk beneath the noise and bustle of a smoky, teeming city.
Matthew Cutler, newly widowed and caring for two spirited daughters, takes his position as constable for the parish of Spitalfields very seriously. So when Paulo Brisco, a quiet Venetian perfumer is found brutally murdered in his own shop, Cutler throws himself into his first major crime, and one which threatens to set all Bishopsgate alight.
Quintus Huntley: Botany by Royce Leville
From Goodreads: When his sole poetry collection is found in the case of a gruesomely murdered violinist, the police think Huntley did it. But he’s innocent, and the best way to prove it is to find the killer himself.
Variously assisted by Detective Everest, PR writer Aphra Massey and octogenarian computer hacker Henrikson, Huntley tries to solve a series of deaths (and one coma) that result from plant poisonings. While he has no idea what he’s doing, his ability to see stories, identify motives and predict endings enables him to zero in on the “weed killer”. For Huntley, all the answers are in the stanzas.
But there are bigger pieces in play, including a new subdivision being built on Perth’s southern wetlands, drug deals aplenty, a police force that looks out for themselves, a politician intent on making WA a separate country, and Huntley’s loose-cannon teenage daughter Verity. Can Huntley put all the pieces together to find the killer before the killer finds him?
One of Our Darcies is Dead by Grace Caldwell
From Freebooksy: Welcome to Hawthorne Cove. It’s basically a seaside Stars Hollow but with even more books. This year, they’re going all out for their inaugural Jane Austen Festival. There are bonnets. There are scones. There are half a dozen Mr. Darcies. Well, 5 now. 1 of them is dead. And literature professor Chloe Sinclair would very much like to find out why.
The Spellbound Cottage by Genevieve K. Thomas
From Amazon: Freshly single and heartbroken, Beatrix Bilberry moves to a tumbledown cottage in the magical village of Little Sparrow.
But her new home comes with unexpected company: gnome infestations, troublesome pixies, a melodramatic ghost haunting the attic, and Barnaby, an adorably sleepy hearth dragon.
Her annoyingly handsome neighbour Angus takes delight in teasing her about the impossible renovation work. Tall, tattooed, and effortlessly charming, Angus has a way with people and animals that makes him far too easy to fall for… to everyone, it seems, except Beatrix, as his careless comments grate on her nerves.
Besides, Beatrix has no time for romance. Winter is approaching fast, and she’s racing to restore the cottage before the first snowfall. She’s promised her family a magical festive season – and she’s determined not to let them down.
Beatrix works around the clock, but with a complete lack of plastering skills and magical creatures constantly undoing her hard work, she soon realizes there’s only one way to fix Spellbound Cottage. She’ll have to swallow her irritation and accept Angus’s help…
But when the meddling cottage keeps locking them in rooms together, Beatrix realizes she’s facing something far more dangerous than rebuilding a home: opening her heart to love again.
The Glorious and Epic Tale of Lady Isovar by Dave Dobson
From Amazon: Lady Isovar is a mighty and supremely confident knight errant who leaps into adventure with both feet and then tracks it all over the rug. Chevson, her long-suffering squire and companion, is a former student of stone magic who spends most of his time keeping his mistress from causing enthusiasm-related injury to innocent bystanders.
A tragic turn of events has sent them far from home, where they roam the countryside righting wrongs, smiting miscreants, deposing despots, and taunting their foes, often with seriously questionable one-liners. This new life is more than enough for Izzy, but Chevson wants nothing more than to set right what he harmed long ago. Following clues to sites of ancient power, they might just achieve his aim. That is, if they aren’t murdered, dismembered, devoured, executed, roasted, or derailed by Izzy’s bravado first.
The Devil’s Grin by Annelie Wendeberg
From Amazon: She’s London’s most brilliant bacteriologist. She’s also not supposed to exist.
By day, Dr Kronberg cuts through corpses in Guy’s Hospital’s gaslit laboratories, hunting microscopic killers that claim more lives than Jack the Ripper. All the while, hoping no one discovers the woman beneath the gentleman’s attire.
When a body surfaces in London’s waterworks bearing marks of medical torture, Kronberg draws the attention of Sherlock Holmes. He sees through her disguise in seconds. Though Holmes could destroy her with a word, he isn’t her biggest problem.
The victim’s wounds speak of medical experimentation. Of doctors who view London’s poor as laboratory rats. Of a secret medical society that makes Burke and Hare look like amateurs.
To infiltrate their ranks, Kronberg must become the very monster she fears — cold, brilliant, willing to kill in the name of science. She’ll need to convince them she’s worse than any of them.
What books did you add to your shelves this week?
Stacking The Shelves
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